{"id":1610,"date":"2019-05-03T15:27:22","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T22:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/?p=1610"},"modified":"2019-05-09T13:37:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:37:31","slug":"the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impact of Health Care Trends on Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Revenue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1615\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Changes\nin the health care industry are as inevitable as death and taxes. New trends\nemerge so frequently, it\u2019s nearly impossible to differentiate between those you\nshould pay attention to and others you can ignore. Ambulatory surgery center\n(ASC) owners and administrators need to focus their attention on three trends\nthat are poised to have a significant impact on cash flow and revenue.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ASC Challenges and Trends<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Like\nmany in the health care industry, ambulatory surgery centers are faced with a\nnumber of challenges affecting the bottom line: higher patient volumes,\nconstantly evolving formulas for reimbursement, an increasing number of payers\nand a regulatory environment that is forever in flux. In order to be prepared\nfor these issues, ASC owners and administrators should keep a close eye on the\nfollowing health care trends and anticipate their potential effect on your\npractice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Price\ntransparency. <\/strong>The drive for increased price transparency among health care\nproviders continues to pick up steam as patients, burdened with higher premium\ncosts, deductibles, and coinsurance payments, are demanding to know up front\nwhat their costs will be before committing to a procedure. This is especially\ntrue if their surgery is elective. Effective January 1 of this year, in an\neffort to improve transparency, the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid\nServices implemented new regulations requiring providers to list charges for\nprocedures online. Some states, such as Florida, have instituted even more\nstringent requirements. ASCs will need to take a close look at operational data\nand current costs in order to create a reasonable and appropriate fee schedule\nfor patients, one that can be customized for each patient depending on their\nspecific insurance coverage and benefits. Providing up-front estimates is a\ngreat way to ensure you meet patient expectations regarding transparency and\nwill also help in your collection efforts. <\/li><li><strong>New financing\noptions. <\/strong>With\nthe burden of health care costs shifting to patients, new financing options are\nbecoming necessary. Consider a 2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/publications\/files\/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a>&nbsp;by the\nFederal Reserve that showed 4 in 10 adults would be unable to afford an\nemergency expense of $400. If that\u2019s the case, coming up with money to pay\ndeductibles and coinsurance costs will be even more of an uphill climb. To\ncounter this, many providers are coming up with patient payment plans that\nallow consumers to make smaller installment payments over time. Deciding if\nsuch an approach is right for your ASC requires taking a look at your typical\nuncollectible patient debt and deciding if the third-party costs associated\nwith an installment-type plan would be worth it to limit the long-term\nfinancial risk involved in uncollected payments. <\/li><li>Patients\naren\u2019t the only ones worried about higher health care costs. Employers are also\non the hook, with rising health care premiums cutting into their profit\nmargins. Some are even ditching the middleman entirely by choosing to contract\ndirectly with providers. You\u2019ll have to analyze revenue trend data and patient\ndemographics to decide whether this type of self-insurance arrangement will\nwork for your ASC. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Price\ntransparency. <\/strong>The drive for increased price transparency among health care\nproviders continues to pick up steam as patients, burdened with higher premium\ncosts, deductibles, and coinsurance payments, are demanding to know up front\nwhat their costs will be before committing to a procedure. This is especially\ntrue if their surgery is elective. Effective January 1 of this year, in an\neffort to improve transparency, the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid\nServices implemented new regulations requiring providers to list charges for\nprocedures online. Some states, such as Florida, have instituted even more\nstringent requirements. ASCs will need to take a close look at operational data\nand current costs in order to create a reasonable and appropriate fee schedule\nfor patients, one that can be customized for each patient depending on their\nspecific insurance coverage and benefits. Providing up-front estimates is a\ngreat way to ensure you meet patient expectations regarding transparency and\nwill also help in your collection efforts. <\/li><li><strong>New financing\noptions. <\/strong>With\nthe burden of health care costs shifting to patients, new financing options are\nbecoming necessary. Consider a 2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/publications\/files\/2017-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201805.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a>&nbsp;by the Federal Reserve that showed 4 in 10 adults would be\nunable to afford an emergency expense of $400. If that\u2019s the case, coming up\nwith money to pay deductibles and coinsurance costs will be even more of an\nuphill climb. To counter this, many providers are coming up with patient\npayment plans that allow consumers to make smaller installment payments over\ntime. Deciding if such an approach is right for your ASC requires taking a look\nat your typical uncollectible patient debt and deciding if the third-party\ncosts associated with an installment-type plan would be worth it to limit the\nlong-term financial risk involved in uncollected payments. <\/li><li>Patients\naren\u2019t the only ones worried about higher health care costs. Employers are also\non the hook, with rising health care premiums cutting into their profit\nmargins. Some are even ditching the middleman entirely by choosing to contract\ndirectly with providers. You\u2019ll have to analyze revenue trend data and patient\ndemographics to decide whether this type of self-insurance arrangement will\nwork for your ASC. <\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Changes in the health care industry are as inevitable as death and taxes. New trends emerge so frequently, it\u2019s nearly impossible to differentiate between those you should pay attention to and others you can ignore. Ambulatory surgery center (ASC) owners and administrators need to focus their attention on three trends that are poised to have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"schema":"","placeID":"","no_match":false,"name":"","company":"","review":"","address":"","city":"","state":"","zip":"","lat":"","lng":"","phone1":"","phone2":"","fax":"","mon1":"","mon2":"","tue1":"","tue2":"","wed1":"","wed2":"","thu1":"","thu2":"","fri1":"","fri2":"","sat1":"","sat2":"","sun1":"","sun2":"","hours-note":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice-advice"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Impact of Health Care Trends on Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Revenue | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Changes in the health care industry are as inevitable as death and taxes. New trends emerge so frequently, it\u2019s nearly impossible to differentiate between\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Impact of Health Care Trends on Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Revenue | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Changes in the health care industry are as inevitable as death and taxes. New trends emerge so frequently, it\u2019s nearly impossible to differentiate between\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-05-03T22:27:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-05-09T20:37:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"5592\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"3728\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ascent\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ascent\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Impact of Health Care Trends on Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Revenue | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","description":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Changes in the health care industry are as inevitable as death and taxes. New trends emerge so frequently, it\u2019s nearly impossible to differentiate between","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Impact of Health Care Trends on Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Revenue | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","og_description":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Changes in the health care industry are as inevitable as death and taxes. New trends emerge so frequently, it\u2019s nearly impossible to differentiate between","og_url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/","og_site_name":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","article_published_time":"2019-05-03T22:27:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-05-09T20:37:31+00:00","og_image":[{"width":5592,"height":3728,"url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Ascent","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ascent","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/","url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/","name":"The Impact of Health Care Trends on Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Revenue | ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1.jpg","datePublished":"2019-05-03T22:27:22+00:00","dateModified":"2019-05-09T20:37:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/a48fa1aa41da1c29cc94d21d838e548c"},"description":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT | Changes in the health care industry are as inevitable as death and taxes. New trends emerge so frequently, it\u2019s nearly impossible to differentiate between","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/banking-cash-deposit-1602726-1.jpg","width":5592,"height":3728},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/the-impact-of-health-care-trends-on-ambulatory-surgery-center-asc-revenue\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Impact of Health Care Trends on Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Revenue"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/","name":"ASCENT: Administrator Support Community for ENT","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/a48fa1aa41da1c29cc94d21d838e548c","name":"Ascent","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d989781765ad4aaeddfde1e4751472ee?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d989781765ad4aaeddfde1e4751472ee?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Ascent"},"description":"The Association of Otolaryngology Administrators has more than 1 thousand members and continues to be the leader in otolaryngology practice management. AOA serves their membership through successful resources and services offered while striving to keep pace with future opportunities.","url":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/author\/ascent\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1610"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1627,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610\/revisions\/1627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ascentblog.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}